I am Helen Keegan, a veteran of mobile marketing, advertising and media since 2000. This is my diary and musings about mobile since 2004. I am part consultant and part events organiser in London, Barcelona & beyond (Swedish Beers & Heroes of the Mobile Fringe). I write here about mobile tech and media, and some other stuff too.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Whilst I have a bit of blogging mojo going on, best share a few links with you and why I think they’re worth a look.

There’s an app for that. Or so the saying now goes.

The English National Opera joins the iPhone bandwagon and have put together a rather nice mobile application for opera buffs. I would test it, but I don’t have an iPhone. But since iPhone apps are essentially skins to a browser it shouldn’t be *that* hard to make a mobile web friendly version. I await with anticipation. And if the ENO can do this, surely it can’t be long before the rest of the West End realise that mobile is core to their digital strategy. I live in hope being partial to live theatre ‘n all.

And for the tiny tots in your life, there’s an app for potty training too. Read all about it here.

And with 65k other applications in the iPhone app store, marketing is even more critical to get your app noticed and sold. So there are some tips in this article ‘How to get to number one in the App store’. My caveat being that there is more than one App store out there and there’s more than one device where you can use and download apps. Also, the article isn’t as in-depth as one might like, but it’s a start.

And last, but by no means least, I’ve uploaded The Tanla Guide to Mobile Marketing and Advertising 2008 I wrote up to Slideshare. I wrote and compiled it at the end of 2007 so it’s a little out of date, but there are enough case studies and examples to keep you going that are still more than relevant today. The guide also includes essays and articles from fellow mobilists including Tomi Ahonen, Russell Buckley, Jessica Sandin, Daniel Appelquist and Mike Short. The font size is miniscule so make sure you increase that before you print off or read off your screen. Go download it, it’s free!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Some of you may know that I’ve been working with Vodafone UK & NL on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. I helped to organise it and was also one of the judges for the first heats.

We're now coming to the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to our Mobile Monday London Yahoo Group, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine. Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobiushttp://www.woobius.com/ (UK) A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK) A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicturehttp://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL) Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboohttp://audioboo.fm/ (UK) Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layarhttp://layar.com/ (NL) A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsEhttp://www.mynameise.com/ (NL) Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Monday, September 14, 2009

After a short hiatus, Over The Air is on again this year. It’s a veritable 34-hour mobile fest starting on Friday 25th September at 9am at Imperial College, London. Proceedings close at 7pm on Saturday 26th September.

“Over the Air is a grass-roots mobile developer event that is completely unique in the mobile industry events calendar – it is free to attend, is hands-on in the style of hackdays and barcamps, covers the cutting edge of current mobile development (as opposed to glossy future-speak or sales-pitches), and features bean bags, a big party and an overnight sleep-over. There will also be a competition at the end of the event for the best categories of applications created during the event, with many great prizes.

This year’s programme is currently being put together, but will once again feature technical presentations, tutorials, workshops, and break-out rooms. Expect topics such as Open Source, Java, Symbian (Series-60), Mobile Web, Mobile Ajax, Android, Mobile Linux, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc. If you would like to run a session at Over the Air, please take moment to fill in our session suggestion form ( http://bit.ly/ota2009session ). (I believe there may be a couple of slots left if you’re quick - ed.) The sessions will be 55 minutes in length and while the focus of the event is on mobile development, we are also accepting sessions on user experience and design and we are putting together some sessions on mobile art including (hopefully) a mobile film festival.”

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Well, almost everything you need to know at least. Here are some links to interesting blog posts and articles about being a presenter or panellist which some of you folks out there might find useful, regardless of whether you work in tech or fashion – these tips are all relevant for you.

Apologies for not posting this up for absolutely ages. Even though it’s from back in April, I think it’s still worth a look.

I was invited to speak at the Forum Oxford annual event at the University of Oxford back in April and a very good day it was too. It’s always great to hang out with Tomi Ahonen anyway but on top of that, there were a great range of speakers and topics covered – probably ones that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to – and it was all the better for that.

Rather than rehashing the event here for you, I’ll share some links from other people who covered the event so you can experience a taste of it for yourself.

Apologies for blog silence for the last few months. I’ve been busy twittering, but haven’t quite managed to write anything over 140 characters in length. Hopefully normal service will be resuming shortly.

Anyway, back to mobile business. My friends at Smaato have just announced their Mobile Advertising Awards and it looks pretty impressive to me. It’s the second year they’ve run it and entries are now open to find ‘the coolest ad-enabled mobile content on the planet.’

There are three categories – iPhone (inevitably), mobile website, and finally, mobile applications and games running on other platforms. It’s free to enter and there’s more info available on the Smaato website.

Smaato will invite the winners of each category to participate at next year’s Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. In addition, they will also make a number of introductions for winners to VC's at partner level. Additional prizes are: a booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010, free tickets for Mobile World Congress, and many more.

The jury features a plethora of experienced mobilists and I’m quite sure they’ll have their work cut out for them with 100 or so entries for the first year’s awards. They’ll be looking at unique approach, traction in the marketplace, the idea itself, originality, company positioning and more.

The main prize of a presence at Mobile World Congress is not to be sniffed at so if you’re working in this area, I suggest you seriously think about entering. And if you do, good luck!